Immunologic Renal Diseases

Vinod K. Bansal

This much-needed book is divided into six sections that encompass normal pathophysiology, immune response in renal injury, mediation of immunity of injury, response to injury, the animal models of immunologic diseases, and clinical aspects of immunologic renal disease. In this way the book covers the subject from the basic science to its application to the clinical management of the disease. The purpose is to integrate the mechanism of immune injury to the kidney, explaining the basic pathophysiologic mechanism, which leads to the disease manifestation and then using that knowledge to treat the disease process. In other words, the book facilitates and clarifies the application of basic science to the immunological disease process in humans and then uses the knowledge so gained to treat the clinical disease. The authors have admirably met all their objectives in this book. The audience for this book should be quite wide and should include the nephrologist, the internist, the immunologist, and the rheumatologist. In addition, this book would be of great use to medical students and residents. All the chapters are written well. They are concise, with very little repetition from one chapter to the next, and include a lot of information. All the illustrations are clear and well reproduced; in the clinical treatment section there are several algorithms explaining how to approach the common disease process. Just about the only shortcoming of this book may be the lack of color histologic pictures. This book was long overdue. There have been significant advances in the basic science dealing with the immunological diseases of the kidneys, but the information has been scattered and no attempthas been made to gather it and apply it to the rather wide variety of clinical diseases of the kidney that may be immunologically based. This book has succeeded in presenting the basic science information in an easily digestible form and has bridged the gap between the advanced research and the bedside application of such knowledge. I recommend it highly and I think it will be well received.

From The Critics

Reviewer: Vinod K. Bansal, MD (Loyola University Stritch School of Medicine)
Description: This much-needed book is divided into six sections that encompass normal pathophysiology, immune response in renal injury, mediation of immunity of injury, response to injury, the animal models of immunologic diseases, and clinical aspects of immunologic renal disease. In this way the book covers the subject from the basic science to its application to the clinical management of the disease.
Purpose: The purpose is to integrate the mechanism of immune injury to the kidney, explaining the basic pathophysiologic mechanism, which leads to the disease manifestation and then using that knowledge to treat the disease process. In other words, the book facilitates and clarifies the application of basic science to the immunological disease process in humans and then uses the knowledge so gained to treat the clinical disease. The authors have admirably met all their objectives in this book.
Audience: The audience for this book should be quite wide and should include the nephrologist, the internist, the immunologist, and the rheumatologist. In addition, this book would be of great use to medical students and residents.
Features: All the chapters are written well. They are concise, with very little repetition from one chapter to the next, and include a lot of information. All the illustrations are clear and well reproduced; in the clinical treatment section there are several algorithms explaining how to approach the common disease process. Just about the only shortcoming of this book may be the lack of color histologic pictures.
Assessment: This book was long overdue. There have been significant advances in the basic science dealing with the immunological diseases of the kidneys, but the information has been scattered and no attempt has been made to gather it and apply it to the rather wide variety of clinical diseases of the kidney that may be immunologically based. This book has succeeded in presenting the basic science information in an easily digestible form and has bridged the gap between the advanced research and the bedside application of such knowledge. I recommend it highly and I think it will be well received.

3 Stars from Doody